Thursday, February 15, 2007

Featured Seller: CartoonSmart.com

This is the first post in a series on merchants that sell digital goods. We hope to provide some insight into people who have had success in the digital downloads area from a wide variety of product types.

This week we have Justin from CartoonSmart.com here to tell us a little bit about how he approaches selling digital goods online. He has been with PayLoadz almost since the beginning, so we are very happy to feature him here.Tell us about what kind of digital goods you sell.Downloadable High Quality Video Tutorials mostly focusing on teaching Adobe Flash.

What file and delivery formats do you use?Zip files (remotely hosted and PayLoadz hosted), for file delivery, and QuickTime for video tutorial playback as well as Flash source (.fla) and movie (.swf) files .

How long have you been selling your items?Three years now.

How have your sales performance changed since you started selling?Mostly on the rise.

What tools have helped your increase your sales?PayLoadz, in the sense that buyers love an immediate download, which often times equates to an immediate solution to their problem. Many of my buyers have a need to learn Flash quickly, either the boss put them on a deadline or they have a school project due soon. So instead of waiting days or weeks for something in the mail, they are instantly gratified.

What tools or service have helped you manage your business?Aside from PayLoadz, PayPal is another big one. I think non-PayPal merchants underestimate how many folks already have an account, and are more willing to buy because they DON’T have to use their credit card on yet another site.

Can you provide any advice to sellers just getting started selling digital goods?Play up the immediate download thing! A couple times I’ve bought from other e-merchants that were a bit vague about when the post-purchase download would occur. And then I was surprised to find out these merchants were using Payloadz. If you can put emphasis on getting your product right away, you always should. Especially when you consider how often cart-abandonment occurs. If a buyer has any uncertainty it usually boils down to a whole cart load of sales being abandoned. Also don’t mention a download time-limit, or make it seem like it’s a one-shot attempt at downloading. You want people comfortable when buying. And some buyers have this self-imposed download-pressure regardless, so anything you say to alleviate that helps.

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That's all for now, check back later or subscribe to our feed to read more about other downloadable product sellers.